


The Road to Home - part 6

by MiaCousland



Series: The Road to Home [6]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, mentions of Kirkwall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2494214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCousland/pseuds/MiaCousland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More emotions are revealed throughout the day before Alistair discovers Mia in the arms of another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road to Home - part 6

**Author's Note:**

> I have borrowed the idea of a note from another writer on AO3. It references an excellent story posted by FenZev and is entitled "Codex entry: Letter to Alistair". I highly, highly recommend you search for it and read it. My story will become a lot clearer after you've read it. Many thanks to FenZev for allowing me to use it!

I sat on the edge of the bed and turned to look at my wife sleeping. It had been said by bards through the ages but she was so peaceful when she was asleep. With no nightmares to disturb her, the only care I would see often were smiles, or sometimes slight gurgling laughs; a private dream making her happy. If I ever got the chance to witness these, I would smile back even though she couldn't see me.

Smiling wistfully, I turned back to looking at the note in my hand. I kept it on me at all times as besides Mia, it was the thing I held most dear. I often took it out and just looked at it when life was making me stressed, or things were too difficult. Reading the words that I had long ago memorised, I thought of earlier that day. Imagining Mia tripping at the top of those castle walls made me inhale sharply through my nose in panicked memory.

“Are you okay?” came the gentle, sleepy voice from the pillow.

She looked at me through a mass of blonde hair that she sleepily brushed from her face. I reached out and placed my hand on her leg through the blanket. She smiled at my touch.

“I didn't mean to disturb you. I'm sorry.”  
“You didn't. We need to start getting ready anyway.” she yawned, stretching the full length of the bed. Drowsily, she sat up and moved to sit just behind me, wrapping her arm around my waist. She rested her chin on my shoulder and kissed it lovingly. “What are you reading, my love?”  
“Something I should have shown you a long time ago.” I told her calmly.

With a laden sigh, I handed her the well worn parchment and turned to watch her eyes take it in. It didn't take her very long to read it at all. Like I knew she would, her eyes welled up and she covered her mouth with a sad gasp.

“Where did you get this?” came the hushed response.  
“I found it on his shield when I was repairing the leather padding on the back. It had been sewn into the lining.”  
“This is unbelievable. Is it genuine, do you think?”  
“Yep.”  
“He loved you, Alistair. Duncan loved you.” she said. As she looked me directly in the eye, I could see tears beginning to form. As emotional as I felt, that made me feel even worse.  
“Looks like it.” I breathed slowly, nodding my agreement. “We've always known he sent us to Ishal to keep us out of harm's way. This proves it.”  
“Darling.” Mia reached out and squeezed my hand.  
“But I never got to say anything to him.” The sides of my eyes suddenly felt spiky and I rubbed them to get rid of any grit.  
“Oh my love, he knew!” Mia said, jumping to her knees and wrapping her arms around my neck tightly.  
“When you said earlier...”  
“You know I'm sor ...” she interrupted.  
“Let me finish.” I said firmly. “When you said that I had no family, and that I didn't know ...” A lump come to my throat and broke my voice. I coughed and tried again. “You said that I didn't know what you were going through. Duncan recruited me, trained me …” Here my voice cracked against my will. “... loved me. Loved me like a father loved a son. I lost my father at Ostagar, Mia. I lost him!”

And so I dissolved too. I couldn't hold back the tears. I had tried to be reserved but my head slumped over into my hands and I felt the water flow through my fingers. I didn't care whether anyone saw me. I had understood Mia more than she knew. Our own souls knew what it was like to be ripped asunder and we recognised the pain in the other. I felt her lovingly squeeze one of my arms and run her other hand over my back, leaning her cheek on my shoulder. No-one had known what I felt in all the time the troupe had been travelling. It was no-one else's business that I grieved. It was personal to me. Maybe my mirror soul had cried out to me yesterday when Mia broke down. It let me know that it was finally okay to release the pain.

“Yeah, so that happened.” I said finally when my tears had dried up. Looking over at her through the side of my face, we caught each other's eyes. “Don't worry. I'll be back to stupidity and witty banter before long.” Mia smiled at me forlornly. “Great King Alistair loses all control and sobs over father he never knew loved him. The bards would love that. Maker, the court gossips would love that. They already think I'm weak.” I sighed with sadness.  
“Do you remember what I told you the first time we slept together?”  
“'Not for that performance'?” I asked with a wary grin.  
“I told you that the first smart comment and I feed the group to the darkspawn. The same applies to the court nobility.”

Of course I remembered the moment with sublime clarity. How could I forget one of the most perfect times of my life?

“See, this is why I love you.” I told her with a smile. Mia beamed back. My heart swelled at the shared private memory.  
“You may be King but you're still just a man.” she said quietly. “You're allowed to be in pain at losing someone you love, especially the man you regarded as your father.”  
“I love you, Mia. So much.”

I was so grateful to her. There was no judging me, just love and a bundleful of those magical hugs of hers. Kneeling up, she found my jaw and made me face her. Guiding it up to mine, she didn't need to tell me she felt the same way. We didn't need to say anything at all.

 

* * *

 

With a long sigh, I relaxed back into the hot water and felt my tight muscles sing with gratitude. Mia and I had stayed in our chambers all day. After the morning's high emotions, we had stayed together like we had promised, just in the bedroom. There was too much passion running through both of us to go anywhere else. Besides, Fergus would be sleeping off a major hangover. I had always been secretly proud of how Mia could shake off being drunk to become serious when she needed to be. She would never know that, of course. We had slept, made love, taken some lunch, then fucked our way through the afternoon, before sleeping again till just now. I was exhausted, I realised with a wide smile, and for the best of reasons. Andraste, my wife was alive with sexual energy and it made me weak to think of her naked and wanting me.

Mia knew how worried I had been and I could tell how sorry she was. I had seen that straight away when she had come to find me in the training yard. Her eyes were as expressive to me as her mouth. As she stood at the top of those steps looking at me, searching for forgiveness, she had received it before even asking, though I couldn't forget what horror I had felt knowing she had put herself in such stupid peril. Fighting her way across Ferelden hadn't worried me as I knew what a skilled and accomplished warrior she was, but tripping and falling whilst drunk could be within anyone's grasp. I couldn't stand to lose her. Just the thought of it started my heart racing even now and I felt my throat constrict slightly. She had needed to know how much I had to lose, and how much she meant to me. That was why I finally showed her the note from Duncan. It had been an emotional morning, to say the least. Trying to ignore this, I concentrated instead on the various positions we had tried that afternoon and before long I was grinning from ear to ear.

I ducked under the water and pushed back up again to break the surface. Soap got rubbed into my hair and I rinsed it quickly. People didn't believe me but I never spent long on my appearance. Morrigan always used to mock me that I would spend more time on my hair than learning battleplans. She was wrong.

“I didn't need to, I could teach battle strategy.” I said to the room in my best suave and devastatingly handsome voice, an eyebrow arched ready to impress the ladies.

I pouted as I realised no-one was there to see me. Going back to getting washed, I reached for my razor and soap, and slowly lathered my face. I took great care here as I had lost count of the time I had nicked my skin. I was about to go to dinner and it always stung when I ate fruit. A drag of a washcloth around my body and I was ready to go, but not before some extra soak time. Mia had refused to let me bring any of my bath toys with us so they had stayed in my secret stash in Denerim. Just another few minutes before I got out of this nice, hot bath ...

From out of nowhere water was splashed on my face and I jerked awake. Blinking rapidly and staring wildly about me trying to work out what was going on, I saw my darling wife standing above me, naked and with an amused look on her face. Her hair was ready and pinned. She looked stunning. Just … naked.

“You'll be late if you do that.”  
“I wouldn't fall asleep if certain people hadn't demanded that I fucked them all afternoon.” I replied lazily as I closed my eyes and leaned against the back of the bath.  
“Well, that's the advantage of being Queen. You get to give out orders. Even the King is beneath you.” she grinned with the most wonderfully filthy look in her eyes.  
“Why, you ...” I said as I jumped forward and grabbed at her waist, sloshing water all over the bathroom floor. Mia let out a scream and jumped back, laughing as she did so.  
“No, dearest man, I am not joining you in the bath. I don't care if you are the Monarch or not.” I mock-frowned at her. “We're going to be late if you don't hurry up.”

With that, she turned and walked quickly out of the bathroom, a grin on her face and a sway to those glorious hips. Just watching that backside walk away from me was enough to get me heated again. Feeling myself getting aroused, I tried to concentrate on something other than her pert arse but every time I tried, it just kept coming back to the whole curve of her lower back and her legs, and that wonderful behind. I climbed out of the bath and got dry but I still couldn't get rid of it.

“Oh, my love!” I called into the next room.  
“Yes?”  
“We have a problem …”

I walked into the bedchamber and smirked at her. Shrugging my shoulders and holding my arms out, it was obvious to her what was the problem. She folded her arms and grinned at me.

“Darkspawn? You couldn't have thought of darkspawn?”  
“I tried, really I did, but then you walked away from me. All thoughts of anything other than your arse just weren't going to stay around.”  
“What? This arse, you mean?” she said sexily, turning around and coyly looking over her shoulder at me, cutely biting her forefinger as she did so. “I do apologise.”  
“Mia, stop it. The formal banquet in our honour starts in half an hour...” I growled lustily, feeling a familiar heat take over my blood.  
“Well then. You'd better get over here and we'll sort the problem out.” She sat back on the bed and looked me directly in the eye. “Won't we?”

'Well,' I remember thinking as I walked straight over there, 'a King's got to do what a King's got to do ...'

 

* * *

 

“Do we have to do this?” I whined at her as we stood outside of the massive double doors into the main hall of Castle Cousland. I didn't mean to whine but I was hungry.

She glanced up at me with those beautiful eyes and shook her head with a smile. I just knew in her head there was tutting. Mia looked sensational, as she always did. I can't profess to know anything about ladies' fashions but the dress was blue. It had felt silky as I helped her into it – did that mean it was made of silk? I guess so. Dashing to get her into it, there had been a lot of giggling and protestations as we threw the skirts over her head and tried to do up the gown. My clothes were easy to put on and do up, but hers had to be 'laced'. What an evil invention that was. It cinched at her waist and made her breasts look incredible though. Not that it took much to make them look fabulous. She had thrown some jewellery on and in ten minutes had managed to look more beautiful than many women I'd seen in the Denerim court, and I knew that they spent hours on how they looked. I held her hand up and gave her fingers a squeeze. I could do anything with this woman by my side, even face Ferelden nobles.

“Is it any different from our wedding reception? It's a formal occasion and Fergus wants to do things properly.” she said.  
“But I just want to eat.”  
“You've never tasted Highever cheese, have you? You're in for a treat, my love. The stinkier, the better.”

I burst out laughing before stifling it quickly. A series of trumpets and horns signalled that the doors were about to open so I lifted her hand and we looked to the front. I couldn't quite get the smirk off of my face so I tried to go for 'benevolently amused' instead of serious. I hoped people would think I was a kindly King, rather than the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-trousers kind of leader. I was trying.

The doors opened in front of us and we walked out into a bright, warm, and very large, room. As we walked up the central carpet, I glanced around at the faces I saw there. I felt my stomach start to tremble. Gowns and jewellery, armour and doublets – there was a sea of nobles that all bowed as we walked past. I felt like telling them all to stop. It still felt silly to me. I was just Alistair, the Grey Warden, who had slept rough for a year and been hungry for most of it. Two long tables ran down either side of the middle aisle. There was an almost overpowering scent from flowers, but behind that was roast meats, stews and wine. I led Mia up to the top table where Fergus waited for us. She was seated and I took my place next to her. Everyone sat down at my cue and almost immediately the talking started. There was a general hum as servants came round, bringing bread and serving wine. In the gallery, a small band of minstrels played to keep us entertained. It was twee and predictable, but at the same time, I found myself looking forward to it. It was Mia's home so I knew it would be fun.

“I thought you said it was just us dining tonight, Fergus?” I mused with a grin, nodding my head to the full hall in front of us. “Weren't the doors supposed to be barred?”  
“Well, you know what the nobility are like. The scent of royal blood and the wolves come out to hunt.”

I chuckled to myself as I took a sip of wine.

“If you're worried about Denerim finding out, I hate to have to tell you this but I was handed this missive just before we entered the room.”

He waved a piece of paper over to me. Taking it and slipping my finger under the seal, I opened and read it. An involuntary groan escaped my lips.

“What is it, my love?” Mia asked concernedly, placing her hand on my arm.  
“Eamonn has sent private word. He says the situation in Kirkwall is looking precarious. I am to go as soon as possible. There is a retinue arriving in a week's time to accompany me over there.”  
“Well, Highever is the embarkation point for the Free Marches. You'd have been passing through here anyway. It is okay. We have a week.” She was trying so earnestly to make me feel better and I loved her for it, but nothing could take away from the fact that this was my life now.  
“Mia, my love, this was supposed to be our honeymoon.” I whispered privately to her, leaning over so only she could hear me. “I wanted to spend time with you.”  
“There are beaches and grottos all along the coast where we can be alone. I will show you.” she told me with a smile, before dropping her voice further and whispering into my ear. “Don't worry, my darling. I will make up for those lost days.”

I received a kiss on the cheek for my worries. There was a momentary hush in the crowds in front of me but when I looked up, they were talking amongst themselves, with only the most furtive of glances on our direction.

The evening passed very nicely. I almost forgot that everyone was there to see me. We dined on roast chicken served with braised vegetables, masses of creamed potatoes, with waves of gravy to accompany it. There was some form of fluffy chocolate pudding that was extremely tasty but then – oh Maker – there was the cheese course. This is where I started to get serious. I was studying them all in turn and taking notes. Different wines were served with the different varieties. There was a particularly fine and piquant goat's cheese from a farm further along the coast that I moaned with delight when I tasted. It was creamy and delicious.

Various nobles also approached the tables to be introduced but I think I confused them by jumping up to shake their hands. This was not their normal procedure and it puzzled them. I didn't care. I didn't want to be seen as inaccessible and distant. I wanted to be seen as a friendly King.

After dinner, Mia turned to whisper something in my ear.

“I have a previous engagement in the library, my love. Give me five minutes.”

I nodded to her seriously, playing the part for the crowd watching. She wanted to be alone with me, that much was obvious. I was curious as to why it was the library but if she wanted to have sex there, who was I to deny her that? I realised, with a degree of embarrassment, that I actually had shrugged my shoulders to the questions inside my head. Sheepishly looking around, I slowly dropped them. The Queen got up to leave so the rest of the room rose to their feet reverently. It made me giggle to see them so formal, especially when I knew what would be happening in the library in about five minutes. I kissed her cheek before she left and then sat down again.

“Alistair,” Fergus cleared his throat, “I am sorry about this morning. I had no idea how stupid we were being at the time. Since then, my mind has burned in embarrassment.”  
“My friend – no, my _brother_ – it is okay. It has happened, it has been dealt with and it has been put away. I am sure the hangover served for your punishment.” I smirked at him as I watched his brow furrow.  
“Not in such a long time has my head felt so bad. You can be rest assured that I have served my penance.”  
“To your good health now then.” I said, picking up my glass and sipping wine.  
“An ironic choice of toast, but thank you nonetheless.” he grinned as he raised his glass.  “So, what are your plans now?”

I sat back and scratched my head.

“Well, Kirkwall in a week's time for me. Mia has to go and see the progress made in Amaranthine at Vigil's Keep. I imagine she will stay on a few days here after I leave before making her way there. I am sure my time in Kirkwall will not take long so I will sail to meet her in Amaranthine after and we will ride together back to Denerim.”  
“And Eamonn won't miss you?”  
“Oh, I'm sure he will but he will have to do without. This is of importance," I signalled, waving the letter slightly, "and I know how much the Grey Wardens mean to both of us. The court will have to do without us for a while.”

I turned to watching the crowds before us and pondered what to say next.

“Fergus?”  
“Yes?”  
“Is there anything else I can do for Mia, being here? Should I do anything to honour the memories of your mother and father?”

Fergus fell silent then. He looked to be staring at the table but the purse of his lips told me he was concentrating on something.

“I will let you know, is the honest answer. All of this is very strange to me, and to Mia. Being here was … odd when I arrived back. I had to tend to the city first and it's only now that I've been able to start rebuilding the castle. I will be building a memorial to them in time. They are down in the crypt if you wish to visit them. I did tell Mia but I sense that she isn't going to go soon.”  
“It is very tough for her being here. Where all the horrific events happened.”  
“She experienced it. We can never know exactly what is was like to be in that situation. But do not worry, brother, knowing my darling sister, she will let you know what you're supposed to do.”

I burst out laughing and a few of the nearest nobles turned around. I raised a hand in apology but still couldn't keep from laughing as I did so.

“Yes, indeed she will!”  
“Alistair, may I say something?  Something personal?” He sounded vaguely emotional so I turned to him and spoke seriously.  
“Of course.”  
“When she is around you, she is the happiest I have ever seen her. Maybe not right now, being home, but walking her down the aisle at your wedding, she was radiant with happiness. You do something to her … soul, she once told me. It changes her for the better. Being her brother, I thought she was pretty wonderful anyway but now, she seems to have improved even more. And I've known her a long time.”

I beamed at that memory and raised my glass to him in gratitude at the kind words.

“Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and find my wife and tell her I love her.”  
“Of course.”

As soon as I rose from my chair, Fergus signalled one of his waiting men and a fanfare rang out. The scrapes of chairs across the stone floors echoed around the room as the entirety of the nobility stood up and faced me. Not knowing what they wanted or expected, I raised a hand to wave goodbye and just walked straight out. I didn't like them staring at me, as if they were mentally picking apart everything I was doing. It was unnerving.

The library was a very short walk away but even so, the amount of guards that lined the open passageways was immense. Mia had been right that the security would have been raised to the maximum by Fergus because of who, or what, I was. It was evident in the number of eyes that watched me from the walls as I passed.

I alighted at the door to the library and rested my fingers on the handle. Two guards flanked the doorway but they were silent. They could be trusted to ignore whatever was going to happen in here, right? I felt awkward just thinking about it but I gripped the handle, opened it and walked right in.

I stopped dead in my tracks. My mouth dropped open at the sight of what was before me.

There, silhouetted by the fire, totally ignoring me - her husband - was my wife hugging that irritating little rogue, Zevran.


End file.
